Semiconductor startup Ampere Computing, which has a big presence in Portland, has filed confidentially for an Initial Public Offering, the company said Monday.
The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, but it has a large office in the Pearl District. It was founded in 2018 by former Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) President Renee James. It makes chips based on architecture from Intel rival ARM Holdings that are designed for large-scale cloud computing and memory-intense applications such as artificial intelligence.
The company is focused on creating chips that are high-performance and power efficient.
Ampere is backed by private equity firm the Carlyle Group as well as significant investment from cloud infrastructure and software company Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). Earlier this year, the scope of Oracle’s investment, at $426 million, was made known through regulatory filings, and according to the news site Protocol.
James is a board member of Oracle but is no longer an independent board member.
The number of shares to be offered and pricing has not been determined, according to a statement from Ampere. The company “expects to complete the public offering following the SEC review process, subject to market and other conditions,” it said in a news release.
The company has a roughly 57,000-square-foot office in the Tanner Point building. Ampere is what is known as a fabless semiconductor company. It designs chips but outsources the manufacturing to someone else. It is working with Intel rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NYSE: TSM), and uses that company’s 7-nanometer process technology. TSMC overtook Intel as the most advanced semiconductor manufacturer after Intel had several major delays in product development and releases.
